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An anonymous reader writes "Forget fingerprints and ID cards, this photo story shows how the latest thing in biometrics is nose scanning! Bath university researchers have claimed that the nose will soon be able to be used as a way of identifying a person. Apparently the 'PhotoFace system captures a 3D image of a person's face by taking several photos lit from different angles to throw shadows on the face and then building a model of facial features. The software determined that there are six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.' Some cool pictures make this worth a click — but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"

They don't actually map the entire DNA of every person, even the british cops, they use some main markers, and those do actually sometimes double up, plus you can fake or spoil DNA very easily by using someone else's hair or spit or some such.

Oh and also they use things like the face and nose because then CCTV can scan and recognize on-the-run without asking permission or stopping people and from a distance.
One of the first to use CCTV (security cams) facial recognition in europe was McDonald BTW, to alert them of unwanted troublemakers that tried to return.

Tried to find a link, but its apparently just too obscure, so I'll go from memory. Carl Reiner was presented some sort of lifetime achievement award by Mel Brooks, who played it as if Reiner had been a total fake all those years, and this was the last straw. The camera cut to shots of protesters with signs reading "Reiner isn't funny", and then Mel accuses Reiner of forcing him to wear a fake Jewish nose. Brooks then proceeds to remove his fake rubber nose, revealing a decidedly less ethnic one underneath, pointing at it and shouting "I have a gentile nose!".

Of course the gentile nose was a fake one on top of his actual nose. But if Mel Brooks can rock not one but two fake noses long enough to present an award, then airport security should be a piece of matzo.

found a bunch of links using the terms 'carl reiner mel brooks false nose'

Flash forward to the April 1991 American Comedy Awards, a show honoring Carl Reiner with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Steve Martin introduces Brooks as Reiner's "illegitimate son" and asks for a few words about his longtime friend and collaborator. Addressing the star-studded audience as "Ladies and Jews," Brooks's voice grows steadily more strident as he indignantly castigates Reiner first for not being funny and second for forcing him to assume a false identity: For 25 years he pretended that he was a Jew when he was really a gentile from Waco, Texas. (The real Waco Kid?) Finally, Brooks rips off his "false" nose, begins yelling in a Texas drawl, and vows never to utter "any more of that Jew talk."

A few moments later, a convulsed Reiner thanks Brooks for channeling into humor his deep-seated anger over having to pay homage to someone less talented. Brooks builds all his films on his indignation, attacking serious topics such as bigotry, intolerance, and greed through comedy

Can you imagine some archelogist digging him up in a few millenia and wondering what kind of shaman he must be? I mean, religious mutilation, various artificial parts inserted in the body...

Must've been a really weird cult of human sacrifice and deification of silicon parts. Some successor of Däniken would certainly claim it's clearly a sign that silicon based aliens were worshipped here by us trying to convert one of us into one of them...

Fingerprints can be faked, it is well known with scotch tape and talc powder, noses change over time, and are only useful to weight other factors. Thats why we also scan your tongue, your eyes, and of course your butt. ( Just drop your pants and sit on the butt scanner - no, it's not a photocopier. )- With apologies to Monsters vs Aliens

The other part that keeps growing is the ear and they have been taking ear prints for a long time now. Usually they are taken from suspects after forensics has found an impression on something like a door or window.

For the first time ever, scientists at the Slashdot institute have actually managed to produce an article summary that is longer than the article linked, as well as providing new information not available in the article itself! How is this possible?

This is actually a good sign. Linking to single stories is fine, but aggregating stories and providing a complete picture in the summary is better than simply picking the juiciest quotes and pretending like it's any sort of value add.

Another stupid idea. Next is the ear scanner, the hair scanner, the tooth scanner (all of the above is out in the public, for someone to make a replica of any part of your body that is out in the open, is just a matter of time). Then they'll move to more private areas I guess and then the internal organs, which will of-course go through a phase of vaginal and anal scanners.

This is dumb. Of-course Michael Jackson could use this better than others, he changed his nose shape more often than other people cha

While studying at University of Rostock in Germany, on 29 December 1566 Tycho lost part of his nose in a duel with fellow Danish nobleman Manderup Parsbjerg. Tycho had earlier quarrelled with Parsbjerg at a wedding dance at professor Lucas Bacmeister's house on the 10th, and again on the 27th. The duel two days later (in the dark) resulted in Tycho losing the bridge of his nose. From this event Tycho became interested in medicine and alchemy. For the rest of his life,

Life just keeps piling on for the poor suffering adolescent geek. Now when he develops a giant zit on his nose, he doesn't just have to worry about the derision of his peers, but his nose-scanning locker won't open.

Lemme get this straight. Bath, a town internationally known for its Rugby Football [wikipedia.org] team, is proposing we use noses for biometric ID?

Rugby being the game for which the phrase "full contact sport" is not so much an understatement as a warning of imminent loss of life? Like American Football only without the pads and helmets? The game where a broken nose is probably the most common injury?

The Bath Rugby team probably have only one intact nose between all 15 players.

Don't let the security-crazed among us start thinking about what other stickout-y parts of the human anatomy they could photograph from six angles, digitize and put on our passports. All to keep the children and kittens safe, of course.

There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.

I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.

Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.

Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."

While able to process images more quickly than conventional biometric identification techniques such as whole face recognition, the system's recognition rates were comparatively low and researchers recommend it as an addition to existing biometrics rather than a replacement.

We have many ways of identifying people; biometrics is only one category. Every means of identifying a person is hackable in some way. I would feel much safer if authentication were based on multiple sources. In particular, GPS tracking, bluetooth presence, facial recognition, each time you enter a password, all should be used to build a continuous track of your location, with confidence ratings as you move between various protocols. Credit card purchases, boarding an airplane, logging in at work; all shoul

Seriously — the very tip — kinda like a rabbit does. (It is a real "chick-magnet", BTW.)

When posing for an ID-picture, I always move it a little bit so that it looks a different on the picture from what is is in normal (relaxed) position. I don't think, the described method would identify me from those pictures...

You can train yourself to do it, BTW — an hour or two in front of the mirror and you'll "get it".

It doesn't really matter what the biometric is of, the whole idea has been shown to fail. It turns out that a key feature necessary for authentication is that a credential can be revoked and a new one issued whenever it has been compromised. That is just not practical for biometrics. If it can be measured, someone can capture that measurement and create a fake.

As shown on Mythbusters, the more expensive the fingerprint reader was, the easier it was to fake it out, but all of them failed one way or another.

If we start lining up and shooting marketing departments, we might one day be able to produce a biometric system that would only fall for very difficult surgical duplications (and so raise the bar quite high), but such systems would likely cost several orders of magnitude more than other equally secure methods that we already have available. Meanwhile, in those few cases where the access is important enough to resort to the surgical approach and someone does so, we're right back to the inability to issue a new ID.

It simply stands as a standard that there is no standard that is 100% effective or unbreakable or loss-proof. Things can only be "More Secure" or "Less Secure". Generally the more secure they are, the easier it is to lose them as well.

The only major difference between passwords and biometrics is that one is knowledge-based and one is physical. Neither are fully secure. There is the difference between how easy it is to potentially steal or duplicate some

...scanning a person's ass cleavage for identity purposes ? Recent research has shown that ass cleavage is in shape, length and depth absolutely unique to any person. With the added advantage the ass cleavage has over the nose: it cannot break.

Segmented curvilinear correction. A broken nose only changes shape in the broken spot, almost always the bridge. The majority is intact. The database results will have those hits that match, say, 5 of the 6 measures. Those will then be subjected to 'morphing' within the constraints of the average (more likely within the standard deviation) of how bridges that most often fit with that nose type are bent and in what way. The Segment that doesn't fit will ha